RtI: Response to Intervention

Instructor: Dusty Phelps

The Pulaski County School District takes seriously its mission to "provide a safe, supportive environment to meet the individual needs of all students and ensure they are college and career ready." In keeping with this mission the district has established guiding principles as a means to this end. The documents and links below contain guidance and information to assist our staff in meeting the academic and behavioral needs of our students.

Click the side of the pyramid above that you are interested in or follow the links below for general information.

Technical Assistance and Implementation Support

Technical Assistance and support with implementation
is made available to schools by the District RTI
Leadership Team. A guidance document for the Pulaski County Intervention System (PCIS) has been developed along with a variety of training and other support materials. Coaching is also available to individuals and/or school teams by the District RTI Leadership Team.

Follow this link (or click on the image to the left) for more information about these supports.

​

Leadership Teams

Implementation of Pulaski County's RTI Initiatives are overseen by a District RTI Leadership Team as well as Leadership Teams at the school level.

Universal Screenings are conducted at least three times per year in the areas of reading, math, writing and behavior. Tools that are commonly used throughout the district include MAP, AIMSweb and analysis of discipline data collected in SWIS or Infinite Campus.

Progress Monitoring
​When interventions are provided, growth or progress must be monitored frequently in order to determine if the academic or behavioral intervention is working for a student. Progress monitoring is the use of assessments that can be collected frequently and are sensitive to small changes in student progress. Data collected through this process are used to determine whether changes in the instruction or student goals are needed.

Data-Based Decisions

Decisions within the RTI system are made by teams using a blended model of standard treatment protocol and/or problem-solving techniques. Using a standard treatment protocol simply means that RTI teams can preselect research-based interventions and have those tools available in advance to be delivered as soon as learning or behavior problems are identified. Data from the universal screening process is used to identify students in need of support, and progress monitoring data is used to determine if the student is responding adequately to the interventions that are preselected for use. If not, then additional preselected interventions are utilized or an individualized problem solving approach is implemented. These techniques ensure that decisions about a student’s needs are made from data collected about the student’s response to high quality academic and/or behavioral instruction and interventions.

Tiered Service Delivery

The Pulaski County Intervention System incorporates a multi-tiered model of service delivery in which each tier represents an increasingly targeted and/or intense level of intervention associated with increasing levels of student needs. Pulaski
County's system reflects a three-tiered design. However, individual schools may choose to adopt additional tiers of service as needed.

Fidelity of Implementation

Fidelity of Implementation refers to the extent to which instructional practices are consistently and accurately delivered as designed. Instructional interventions that are selected for use with students should be validated as effective by scientific research. Using validated practices as intended ensures maximum effectiveness for student growth. Monitoring fidelity of implementation allows schools to proceed with confidence in these instructional practices and avoid ineffective practices and negative outcomes. Resources for monitoring fidelity can be found at this link.